The move flagrantly contradicts assurances made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to Ramagondam last month
Post Date – 11:30 PM, Sat – 12/3/22
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Hyderabad: National fears of a central plot to privatize Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) have come true as the coal ministry has placed coal blocks from Penagadapa, Sattupalli Block-III, Sravanapalli and Kalyanikhani Block-6 under SCCL restrictions. An investor meeting in Bengaluru on Saturday.
The move flagrantly contradicts assurances made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to Ramagundam last month, when he announced there was no proposal to privatize SCCL. More importantly, he has said that since the state owns 51% of the company and the center holds 49%, the center cannot make any major decisions unilaterally.
Less than a month later, the center reversed course and decided to place the coal block under SCCL auction restrictions, despite strong objections from the state government.
The coal ministry organized an investor conclave on commercial coal mines in Bunglelulu on Saturday to auction off 133 coal mines, including four blocks in SCCL. The coal mines are from Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan States, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and West Bengal.
Saturday’s meeting was chaired by union coal minister Pralhad Joshi. The coal ministry has organized such secret meetings in Indore and Mumbai. Tender documents went on sale on Saturday and details were posted on the centre’s MSTC auction platform.
Until recently, coal blocks were offered to coal companies by the Center on a nomination basis. The recommendations of the state governments are also taken into account in this regard. However, now that the center is conducting public auctions of coal blocks, private players can also participate, which means that SCCL will have to compete with the major players to undertake the mining business of these blocks.
According to sources, the auction of the four coal mining blocks will not only affect SCCL’s overall production but also business as new players trying to gain the upper hand and profit from it will try to undercut public sector units such as SCCL. Coal is sold for far less than it is actually worth. PSUs like SCCL will eventually be forced to shut down after suffering huge losses. Of the four blocks being auctioned, the loss of Sattupalli Block-III will have a significant impact on SCCL, sources said.
According to the SCCL employee union, this was actually a ruse by the center to push the company into the red. SCCL has spent huge sums of money researching the availability of coal in these briquettes.
In fact, the Telangana state government has been calling on the center to oppose such auctions for almost a year.
Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao wrote to the Prime Minister on December 7, 2021 stating that SCCL is meeting the needs of the states of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu Thermal power stations play a key role in coal demand, by producing 65 million tons of coal per year. He said uninterrupted supply of coal to various thermal power plants in Telangana was required as power consumption in the state increased and asked for SCCL’s coal blocks to be withdrawn from the auction.
Chandrashekhar Rao had said that the auction of the coal would have an adverse impact on coal demand in the Singareni region.
